A Sea of Paper Birds
by ReviewDiaries
Summary: After the Fall John writes letters to Sherlock. Hundreds of letters. Twists them into paper birds that stretch out across the living room ceiling, leaves the window open and sits in the darkness listening to them whisper his secrets to the air. But when Sherlock returns neither of them know how to return to how they were before. How to try and heal the broken parts of themselves.
1. Chapter 1

_I was so alone, and I owe you so much._

John does not consider himself to be the sentimental type. He doesn't keep many mementos to mark the passage of his life. Never wrote letters home when he was in the army. Despite the blog has never really felt himself to be particularly eloquent.

That was before though.

Before The Fall. Before the blood and the devastation and the empty eyes that haunt him when he shuts his own.

Now he clings to odd scraps – ticket stubs, receipts for meals, notes scribbled in Sherlock's slanted hand. The flat, whilst cleaner and less full of body parts and chemicals, is cluttered with his memories. The walls are covered with pieces that link him back to Before. That link him back to Sherlock. It is a spiders web of thoughts and endless conversations that play on loop inside his head.

And the letters.

Without Sherlock to talk to, to analyse and strip apart the inside of his head he feels too full, as though there is too much trying to break free. He feels it just beneath his skin – the constant itch of words and moments that he saves up to tell Sherlock, only to remember that he isn't there. Mid laugh, mid thought, mid breath – the realisation knocks him senseless every time. It never eases, never relents the constant aching emptiness that is the lack of Sherlock.

The first letter was an accident.

Drunk scrawls. Notes of desperate loneliness. Of guilt and horror and anger at being left behind.

He found the letter the next morning – couldn't bear to look at it; couldn't bear to throw it away. Turned the pages, folds and cuts and pressed lines into origami birds, a trick Sherlock had taught him one sodden day a week into the boredom from no case. Right before he'd taken John's books and built a replica of tower-bridge in the middle of the floor they'd had to manoeuvre around for days after.

He strung the birds up from the ceiling, tipped back to watch them flutter in the breeze from the open window.

The second letter was more deliberate. A soft echo of sentiment that he could not seem to contain within his thoughts any longer. He had to tell Sherlock, to say the words and let the slow unfurling of emotions splay across the page from his pen. Once done, folds, presses, neat lines at deliberate angles and strung up by the first.

Now there are hundreds.

A whole flock of paper birds that hang like twisted mobiles stretching out across the living room ceiling. At night John leaves the window open and sits in the darkness listening to them rustle and whisper his secrets to the air.

They are filled with thoughts and wishes, memories and anecdotes, observations that John knows Sherlock would have teased out of him like thread. Soft prayers and pleas – to not be dead, to come home, to not leave John here alone where he cannot follow. Anger fills some, resentment others, but the ones filled with love outstrip them all. Always he ends with the only sentiment of love he can express, because he could not say the words when Sherlock was alive to hear them, and it would be an insult to whisper them now. _I was so alone, and I owe you so much_.

There are so many now they spill out of the sitting room, hang from the light fittings in the kitchen, spiral lazily over the stairs and tumble haphazardly into John's room. The only place he will not hang them is Sherlock's room. He refuses to go in there – except when he has had one too many tumblers of whiskey and curls sobbing into sheets that long since stopped smelling of him.  
Sherlock would have found the birds intriguing, an oddity, but never would have tolerated them in his own space – would most likely have set fire to them if John had ever tried to put them in there, and John tells him so in one letter, hanging it directly outside Sherlock's door.

He continues to write; benedictions, prayers to a God he doesn't believe in for a miracle he knows can never happen. Because if he stops that means Sherlock is really, truly gone. That means that all John has left is the musty forgotten scent of him in the sheets on his bed, and the dreams of falling that never turn to flight.

_One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be… dead. Would you do that? Just for me. Just stop it. Stop this…_

John's steps are slower these days. Gone is the boundless energy of the soldier. Gone is the flighty adrenaline of a life lived at Sherlock's side. The walk from the surgery to home takes longer now than it ever used to, and it is almost full dark by the time he pulls himself up the stairs at Baker Street.

He can hear the whispers of the birds in the darkness, and he pauses for a moment in the doorway to allow his eyes to adjust. Adjust to the gloaming that has swallowed the room in the hours he's been gone. He doesn't turn the lights on, doesn't want to see the emptiness that greets him now.

He drops his bag, shrugs his coat off and stops.

A cars headlights sweep past and the room is bathed for a moment in unnatural shadows and sharp lines of light, illuminating the birds that bob and sway and speak a thousand words of his to him. Caressing the soft hulks of furniture that rise out of the darkness. Sliding across the hard planes and angles of Sherlock.

For there is no one else it could be. John would know that silhouette anywhere. Could map out with a ruler and pencil the lines and movement that build and shape to make Sherlock. Sherlock standing in the middle of the room, in the middle of a sea of birds. Sherlock who should be cold and rotting deep beneath the ground, not breathing quietly in the darkness of their flat.

John gasps, a soft, low sound that is almost a moan and sags against the door frame. And Sherlock doesn't turn, but John can hear the smile in his voice as he whispers, "John."

One, two, three steps to cross the room and John's hands are fisting in Sherlock's coat, turning him, touching him, skimming across his face, his arms, his chest. Mapping out what his eyes are telling him but he cannot yet believe.

Sherlock's face is wet and John lifts a finger to his lips and tastes tears. Tears and harsh breaths and the unmistakable feel of hard planes of muscles beneath his fingertips.

John breathes out his name and pulls him closer, breathes it out again and pulls Sherlock's head down to his, touches their foreheads together. He cannot get close enough. Cannot feel enough, see enough to prove that this is real. Is it real? Or has he finally tumbled down into madness. But dear God if this is madness never let him up. Hold him down here in the darkness with the birds and Sherlock because it is the most beautiful madness he has ever known.

"John. My John." Sherlock's words skim out across his skin, tangle in his hair along with his fingers as he pulls John tight against him.

John can feel the thrum of Sherlock's heartbeat beneath his hand, feel the slick wetness of his tears, taste the hot skud of his breath against his cheek, and he feels a part of him that has been coiled tight inside begin to loosen. A keening sound of despair, of loss and mourning fills the air and Sherlock pulls him tighter.

Anger will come later. Harsh words and bitter fights at being left, at being lost, at being left behind. But for now John is content to simply hold and be held in the darkness surrounded by a sea of paper birds.


	2. Chapter 2

At some point during that night, John's dreams inevitably return to the Fall.  
John steps out of the cab to see Sherlock smudged darkly against the sky. And he screams. Because this has all happened before, this has happened again and again every night since, and it is not allowed to happen now.

Sherlock was home, was held in John's arms, alive and real and hard edges beneath his fingertips. He screams Sherlock's name again and again and again and runs desperately to try and beat him to the ground. To try and win the race this time and stop it all from playing out exactly the same.

And then Sherlock's face is above him, his hands are shaking him, pushing sweat soaked hair back from his forehead, murmuring nonsense words designed to soothe.  
John heaves himself upright, desperately trying to pull enough air into his lungs, to try and push the edges of the dream away. Because it must have been the dream. It wasn't real – not this time at least. Hand on skin, mapping him out. He can feel muscle, hear the soft thrum of his heartbeat beneath his palm, see the dark outlines of the paper birds swaying above them.

Sherlock is here. He is back. And it is not ok – it is still so far from ok. May never be truly ok again. But he is here, and for now that is enough for John.

They watch the grey light of dawn creep into the flat together.  
A tangle of limbs and desperate soothing gestures, one of John's hands fisted into Sherlock's shirt and the other tied into his hair. Constant reminders that he is there, that he cannot leave, that he is real. He can't look at him though, not yet. Just the sound of his heartbeat and breath is enough to soothe John for now. If he looks at Sherlock, maps out his face, watches those impassive eyes, he might just break again.

Eventually he has to move, pulls himself from the sofa, untangles himself from Sherlock and quietly goes to put the kettle on. To call work and tell them he will not be in today. To have a shower and change. To try and regain some vague sense of normalcy before he tries to deal with the fallout from Sherlock's return.

When he remerges, Sherlock hasn't moved. Remains seated on the sofa watching John carefully – assessing, analysing, collecting information. Perhaps waiting for the storm brewing just beneath the surface of John's skin.

John sits in his chair, trying to force himself to leave space between them, and sips his tea, waiting. Watching. Now he's allowed himself to look at Sherlock he cannot stop. Can't stop running his eyes over every bone and sinew, each new scar and mark, the shorter curls, the worn patches on his suit. It has been so long and yet no time at all, and John cannot stop drinking the sight of him in.

It is Sherlock who breaks the silence, of course it is. Sherlock never could stand to leave a silence that he hadn't started. Although John supposes that he just doesn't realise that he started this one. It has been months, but John has been silent waiting for Sherlock all this time.

"John I – " He breaks off. "I'm sorry." Trust Sherlock to only learn the words now when they are in no way close to being enough.

"You were dead."

"I – "

"You left me to mourn you. To grieve you. To go mad with desperation at being left behind. You took that step and you left me behind and you knew –" John's voice cracks but he carries on. "You knew that I would have followed you anywhere."

He lets the words hang for a moment, their implication heavy with weight across the carpet. Strung out and delicate and John feels himself begin to snap, but his words never rise above a whisper.

"I lost you. You were there and you said goodbye, and you left me behind. Left me to mourn and to grieve and to face the emptiness of a life with the lack of you in it day after day. And all this time." He swallows the lump in his throat down. "All this time you were there. You were alive. You were waiting and watching and you _knew_ what you were putting me through, and you didn't do a damn thing to stop it."

John breathes heavily through his nose and tries to regain some control over his composure.

"You knew what it would do to me, and all this time you could have left a sign, something, _anything_ that would have told me you were alive, you were ok, and that I wasn't so alone. But you didn't. You chose not to. And that was you abandoning me more than your death ever could."

He can feel the dampness on his cheeks, the tightness in his chest and the pain in his throat from trying to hold back the sobs that are threatening to engulf him, to pull apart his sanity and his reason and leave him broken apart even more than he was before.

"John, I – "

"No. Don't. Of course there was a reason why you couldn't. Of course there are excuses and alibies and _goddamn reasons_ why you left me. There is always a reason when it's you. But that doesn't make it any easier. That doesn't make this any less hard. That doesn't make us any less broken."

Sherlock makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat when John says the word broken, and it nearly fells him. But he can't. He can't just hold out his arms and welcome Sherlock back and pretend that everything is fine and everything is fixed and everything can go back to how it was before. Because no matter what Sherlock does or says to justify it, the fact remains that he did not trust John enough, and that he left John behind.

They sit in silence, watching, waiting. Let the sun chase the shadows across the room until they're bathed in twilight again and John's tea is cold and he cannot stop watching Sherlock. Can barely allow himself to blink in case it turns out this was all a mirage and he is left sitting in the room on his own in the gathering darkness.

Eventually he cannot take it any longer. Cannot cope with this quiet, careful Sherlock because he is so many months and worlds apart from _his_ Sherlock. And he needs his Sherlock back. More than anything. More than breathing, more than the next heartbeat, more than any piece of sanity or normal life. He just wants Sherlock. And that terrifies him.

He stands, pulling on his coat and shoes.

"I have to go. I have to walk – I have to think." Sherlock makes a move to stand, to come with him. "No. I have to go by myself. But don't you dare leave. Don't you dare go out and leave this place empty again. You have to be here when I come back." John takes a step and grabs hold of Sherlock's hand, pressing two fingers to the inside of his wrist to feel the steady thump of his blood racing through his veins. "You have to promise."

Sherlock nods, and John tears himself away. Throws himself down the stairs and out into the night because he has to breathe, has to think, has to try and push his thoughts into some semblance of order.

He walks, and he thinks, and he tries to force himself to keep moving away from Baker Street, but he can't. Can't bear the thought that the flat might be empty when he comes back. Might all have been the next stage of his grief forming into insanity. That Sherlock might not be there.

He finds himself turning, running, pushing himself as fast as he can back to the flat, back to Sherlock, back to this broken thing that's left between them, because dear God that's better than having nothing at all. That's better than all those months without any part of Sherlock.

He's halfway up the stairs in Baker Street before he realises what he can hear. The sweet strains of Sherlock's violin. And he crumples. Falls in a heap halfway up the stairs and sobs. Gut wrenching, shake his thoughts apart sobs that leave him shaking and breathless from the sheer want and need and desperation of it all.

And then the music has stopped and Sherlock's arms are around him, comforting him, holding him, and John cannot bear it.

"You left me." He screams into Sherlock's shirt. "You left me all alone and I would have gone with you. I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you, you idiot." He shoves Sherlock, pushes him away, punches his shoulder but it's not a real punch when it ends with John's fingers curled up and pulling him closer again. "You left me without you and I couldn't bear it."

"I know." Sherlock's words are quiet, soft pleas dropped into John's hair as he holds him tightly to his chest. "I know. And it was unforgiveable and I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry John."

And then they're both crying. A contest to see who can push away and pull tighter the most. A broken mess of hurt and love and desperation. But John hasn't felt so alive in months. And surely this half broken mess of life he has a chance at with Sherlock again is better than being alone? It is not ok – it is still so far from ok. May never be truly ok again. But he is here, and for now that is enough for John. Because at least they have a chance of fixing it together.


	3. Chapter 3

Windows wide, darkness and cold air pouring in even as the cigarette smoke curls out – John cannot help but watch Sherlock. Tipped back on two chair legs, feet propped on the window ledge, chain smoking cigarettes for something to do with his hands – a distraction from his words. From his motives and implications and the cold emptiness in Sherlock's eyes as he speaks.

The explanations, the reasons, the gaps to be filled in – the story is pulled out in short jerks and fits. An apology of sorts, a desperate plea for forgiveness, for understanding.  
John watches the shapes Sherlock's mouth forms – the cruel twists and half smiles, the sad, self-deprecating slant as he swallows back whatever words he cannot bear to part with.

John lets the words wash over him; a thrilling tale of Sherlock's single handed take down of the world's only consulting criminal and his empire. Yet he cannot bring himself to care. Can only watch the slow twist of smoke that floats up to make the paper birds sway above their heads.  
It is something other –a fairy tale, a bedtime story. If he thinks of it in terms of Sherlock then he ends up shouting, screaming over and over again for the stupid unnecessary risks – the fact that John wasn't there at his back. Wasn't there with his steady hand to pull the trigger. Wasn't there to protect Sherlock.

Sherlock speaks, and John listens, curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows with his head tipped back to see the stars through the open window. It is their limbo, their cocoon to try and patch themselves together into some semblance of their previous selves.  
John cannot bring himself to leave the flat, not to work, not to shop, not for anything would he leave. He cannot let Sherlock out of his sight for fear that this is all a dream, some sort of desperate hallucination. And so they sit, and wait, and John listens to Sherlock's stories of a world that John has no part of.

John catalogues all of the differences he can see in Sherlock. The obvious ones – thinner, harder, shorter hair. The lines that have webbed out around his eyes – lines of tiredness, of pain. But there are others that are only seen through intense study, that John is sure only he could ever see. He is quieter, gone is the arrogance and determined need to have the last word. There is just an even assurance, a determination that silences any questions. But he talks to John, spills out a thousand words to reassure him that he is still there, he is real, he will not leave. Not now, not after all this, not ever again.

John gave up trying to sleep in his own bed after the first few nights. A constant onslaught of the nightmare on repeat until he stumbled down to find Sherlock sitting smoking in the dark – or woken by cool fingertips on his face, soothing away the ragged edges of the dreams. Now he sleeps where he lies, with Sherlock's hand artfully draped just within reach for John to grab hold of in the haze of the dreams, to feel the pulse thrumming beneath his fingertips when the nightmares engulf him again.

Sherlock doesn't question John, doesn't try to pull out the story of those months of absent loss. It is written in the lines on John's face. Inlaid in the desperate way John has to check that Sherlock is still there when he wakes in the night, coating the edge of his screams. Scraped into the lock on the box where John has stashed his gun for fear of using it in desperation. Written in the hundred paper birds strung above their heads.

John realises the foolishness of their current situation, knows it cannot last, but is loathe to let it go. Desperate to cling onto the illusion for as long as he can. Once Sherlock leaves at the beck and call of Lestrad once again – for he will leave, he is not cut out for a life locked up in the confines of the flat – then John will have to trust. Will be forced back into texts and odd moments of reassurance in amongst the day to day bustle of life. Will be forced back into normalcy and hoping and praying that Sherlock will not leave, will not go out one day and not come back. John barely survived last time, and he is not fool enough to think that he would survive it again.

He berates himself, despises his cowardice, hates what Sherlock has reduced him to – so dependent on another person, so reliant on someone else for his own sanity, own peace of mind. Screaming matches that so rarely provoke a rise in this new older, sadder Sherlock. And God damn it, John just wants him to fight back. Wants him to rise to the bait and scream back, rage back, steal John's gun and carve out faces in the wall, pull apart John's furniture to construct models and cities that have to be maneuvered around with poise and grace or risk breaking an ankle. John is terrified at the lack of fight left in Sherlock, the lack of anything. This desperate quiet solitude that cloaks around John and leaves them fighting to remember how to breathe.  
This isn't the Sherlock he remembers. This isn't the Sherlock who stole every piece of him and kept him fighting to survive, to keep up in every desperate chase across the city. And John is terrified that he is gone – that he really did die when he stepped from the roof, and that nothing he can ever do will bring him back.

John wakes with the dawn on the anniversary of Sherlock's death. Watches the slow creep of light push back the shadows, reveal the harsh lines of Sherlock's face, the desperate sadness that seems to be permanently engraved round his lips now, and it makes him want to weep.

They cannot go on like this. Cannot keep trying to hold still for fear of breaking further. They cannot go back, can never go back – so it must be forward. Together. At least they will have that.  
He scrubs a hand across his face, wonders idly when he last shaved, slowly unwinds himself from the mess of blankets and fetches his coat.

The streets are quiet, the first few early risers cluttering the roads, and John walks. Walks out to Sherlock's grave and stands watching the sun rise – every piece of light sucked into the darkness of the tombstone. He stands and thinks, watching and waiting and eventually the words come.

"I have to let you go." He swallows, fists his hands into his pockets. "I know that you did what you did to protect me, but really we both know that you made the wrong choice. Death would have been preferable to the hell you put me through without you. But you chose. And you chose to protect me. And I will always be grateful for that. I owe you – I owe you everything. You came into my life and you saved me, and now you might just do it again. But first I have to let you go. I have to let you free. I can't keep you caged up just in case I lose you again – you don't deserve that. We don't deserve that. And if we stand a chance, any chance at all, we have to save each other. So, uh, I guess I came to say goodbye. I have to. I have to keep moving forward. With you."

John swallows, surprised by how much he is still affected at the thought of Sherlock lying cold beneath him – how he can't seem to scrape the picture from his mind. He leans forward, touches the tombstone gently with the tip of a finger. "I have to let you go."

The walk back to the flat is a blur – panic threatening to rise up and engulf him. He's been gone far longer than he intended, should have told Sherlock where he was going, should have woken him, should have explained.

He takes the stairs two at a time in his haste to get back to the flat, throwing himself in through the door.

But it is empty – Sherlock has gone.


	4. Chapter 4

For a moment all John can do is stare. Turn slowly to take in the entirety of the room – the absence of Sherlock.  
No note. No sign of a struggle. No sign of anything at all.  
Four steps, up on the chair, pulling out the lock box with the gun, checking the clip and thrusting it into the waistband of his jeans. Already he feels steadier, more in control. Can take a full breath and let it out slowly without feeling as though he is about to choke.

He just needs to remain in control, remain calm. To think logically and rationally about it. Sherlock can't have gone far – can't have left. Wouldn't have left John on his own. Not again. Not like this. But God damn it John is going to beat him senseless for this when he finds him again.

Rational. Rational thoughts. Communication. John fumbles in his pockets for his phone but it isn't there. He never picked it up this morning before he left, and suddenly the seeds of fear turn into guilt. This is his fault.

Phone lying on the table, flashing with missed calls and texts. Shit.

**I'm here, I'm home. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going out. Where are you?**

Pacing, pacing, can't sit still, listening to the birds rustle and whisper above him as he passes. As he waits, waits for something, anything, a sign, another miracle. He's asking for a lot of them these days, each more sizeable than the last. For Sherlock to not be dead, for him to come home, for them to be ok again, to not be broken, to let them move forward without shattering apart. But if the first could come true, why not the next? John is pinning his life on miracles and wishes and he feels a laugh that's more a sob than anything else rise up in his throat at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

Door slamming down below and the slow steady movement of Sherlock's footsteps up the stairs and John feels himself sag with relief. Feels the crushing weight that had been hammering his heart begin to lift.

For a moment, when Sherlock appears framed in the doorway, they stare at each other. A moment of undisguised relief that the other is still whole – still there.  
Then Sherlock is across the room and John feels the world shift around him as he's half lifted half pushed against the wall. Slammed there, pinned as the air leaves his lungs in a gasp.

"Did your capacity to form rational thought suddenly abandon you this morning?" Sherlock hisses into his ear, and John cannot help but stare at the fury in Sherlock's eyes. Cannot help but notice the faint tremor in the hand pressed to the wall by John's head.

And it thrills him. This Sherlock that is not passive and twisted in on himself with quiet self-loathing. This Sherlock that is so much more the Sherlock that John has been grieving, that was left behind on that blood stained pavement.  
This Sherlock that feels so, so alive and breathless with anger and fear, and John can feel the desperation of the heartbeat beneath his hand twisted into Sherlock's shirt.

John cannot help it – he smiles. Feels the pain slice into the back of his head as Sherlock punches him. Wonders what the hell is wrong with him that he wants to laugh right now.

"Or perhaps I missed the moment where you received a previous blow to the head? Because that is the only explanation I can think of for your behaviour."

Something starts to loosen inside John, coiling to snap. "My behaviour?" He shoves Sherlock back, hard.

"You left. You didn't even bother to take your phone. On today of all days and I –" Sherlock stops, cannot seem to pull the words out, left stumbling on air for a moment whilst John feels the bitterness rise up inside him.

"It's not nice being left, is it." His voice is practically a whisper, malicious with intent, words dropped into Sherlock's ear even as he tightens his grip on him. "Not nice to be left behind – to feel sick with the fear and the desperation."

Sherlock slams John back against the wall.

"Don't, don't you dare."

"What? Dare what Sherlock? Dare to point out that a couple of hours where you didn't know where I was is nothing, _nothing_ compared to the months of agony you put me through?" There is an unholy light in Sherlock's eyes, but John doesn't care. Just wants to push him, push him until he snaps. Breaks apart like John did, because they need this. They have spent too long dancing so carefully around this toxic mess that built up in the wake of Sherlock's death. Gentle touches and reassurances when what they really needed was to scream it out – fight out the rage and despair and fear and loneliness that has paralysed them, crippled them.

John can see it in Sherlock's face, he needs this too, needs to purge it from his system, is desperately hoping that John won't back down now the challenge has been issued. And John is only too happy to oblige. Isn't this what he went to Sherlock's grave this morning for? To move on. To push past this broken sham of pretending everything is ok. Burn it out of their systems in a blaze of fire.

"You couldn't even last three hours. Imagine how it felt for me. Imagine the agony of thinking you were dead, that you'd left me alone and all I'd ever have was memories and snatches of conversation because you were gone. Imagine – "

"Stop." Sherlock's voice is somewhere between a whisper and a shriek and there is a desperate pleading just behind it, laced at the edges, _don't stop, please god don't stop_.

"Make me."

Sherlock punches him again and John cannot resist the feral smile as he retaliates. Hits back – and there are no holds barred. A seething mess of anger and hurt and resentment and guilt as they fight. Desperate for the pain, for the release, for something that reminds them that they are alive. Despite everything they are alive.

John punches Sherlock twice in the jaw, doubles over in pain from a blow to his solar plexus, lets loose a string of expletives that sound wrong shaped around his smile. He grapples blindly, feels the shirt clenched in his fist rip and his fingers slide off skin instead.

John manages to pin Sherlock against the wall, and pulls his head down to his, making him meet his eye, hold his gaze, listen fully for a moment. And Sherlock is pushing, struggling to keep the momentum going but John isn't having it. Grabs his wrists and pins them roughly against the wall.

"Now you listen to me. You cannot keep on like this. You cannot let the guilt confine you. If you do you take us both down. And I did not fight through the last year only to fall at this. You made your choices and I made mine, and now we have to live with them. But that is the gift – we get to live. We get to keep fighting and making mistakes, and we get to do it together. But you have to stop this. You have to stop being so careful with me, stop regretting that decision. You have to let it go. We both do."

Somewhere in amongst the words Sherlock has stopped scrabbling at John's hands and John can feel a long finger stroking down the inside of his wrist – following the pulse and the veins and the steady thump of his heartbeat that hasn't felt so alive in months.

"We have to let it go. We have to try and move past this." John closes his eyes, the fight leaving him. "Promise me."

He can feel Sherlock's forehead pressed against his own, smell the faint peppermint of toothpaste on his breath, feel the hitch of Sherlock's chest against his as he tries to pull enough air into his lungs.

"I can't." Sherlock's words are more a sob than anything else. "I can't forgive myself for it. I can't just let it go – and neither should you."

John steps in, closing that final inch of space between them, can feel the hard beat of Sherlock's heart drumming straight through his chest and into his own. Plucks one of Sherlock's hands from where it hangs limply at his side and places it over John's heart.

"Feel that?" He waits until Sherlock gives a faint nod, eyes closed, breathing frantically through his nose. "That shows I am still here. Despite everything that has happened, I have survived it. You made a choice. You made what you felt was the right choice, and there is no shame in that. And I am still here. You don't need to carry on dragging this guilt with you."

Sherlock's fingers twitch, tightening until John can feel the five points of pressure against his chest.

John's voice dips, low and desperate. "We can't keep dragging around the past. I have to forgive you and you have to forgive yourself, otherwise we're just going to destroy each other."

He can feel the tremors running through Sherlock's body. Runs his thumb over the back of Sherlock's knuckles. "Promise me you'll at least try? Please – for me."

He leaves the words hanging for a moment, a desperate, quiet whisper that falls into the barely there gap between them. Sits in the hollow of Sherlock's throat that John cannot quiet tear his eyes from as he shifts, their bodies pressing closer, Sherlock trapped between the warmth of John and the wall.

For a moment there is complete stillness, and then Sherlock shifts back, pressing harder, tighter, a slight curving of his neck as he twists his face and dips the words directly into John's ear.

"I promise."


End file.
